[ad. L. anōmalia, a. Gr. ἀνωμαλία, n. of quality f. ἀνώμαλ-ος: see ANOMAL.]
1. Unevenness, inequality, of condition, motion, etc.
1571. Digges, Pantom. (1591), 178. The excesse wherby the Semidiameter of the Ringe or Cornice of the Head dooth exceed the Cornice of the Coyle [of cannon] I call the Anomalye.
1684. T. Burnet, Th. Earth, II. 98. The great shakings and concussions of our globe at that time, affecting some of the neighbouring orbs … may cause anomalies and irregularities in their motions.
1837. Whewell, Hist. Induct. Sc., I. III. ii. 175. The motions of the sun and moon … had other anomalies or irregularities.
2. Irregularity, deviation from the common order, exceptional condition or circumstance. concr. A thing exhibiting such irregularity; an anomalous thing or being.
1664. Power, Exp. Philos., I. 78. To admire Nature’s Anomaly … in the number of Eyes, which she has given to several Animals.
1722. Wollaston, Relig. Nat., ix. 217. Support him under all the anomalies of life.
1818. Hallam, Mid. Ages (1872), II. 213. Time changes anomaly into system.
1852. Gladstone, Gleanings, IV. xvi. 152. The intolerable anomaly of a state obeying in the civil sphere the dictates of the Church.
1870. Disraeli, Lothair, l. 273. A capital without a country is an apparent anomaly.
b. Nat. Sc. Deviation from the natural order.
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., 135. They confound the generation of perfect animalls with imperfect … and erect anomalies, disturbing the lawes of Nature.
1859. Darwin, Orig. Spec., v. (1873), 108. There is no greater anomaly in nature than a bird that cannot fly.
1860. Maury, Phys. Geog., xv. § 669. A low barometer … was considered an anomaly peculiar to the regions of Cape Horn.
c. Gram. Irregularity, exception to the prevailing form of inflexion, etc.
1612. Brinsley, Lud. Lit., xx. (1627), 224. Most exceptions or Anomalies may be learned after.
1751. Watts, Improvem. Mind (1801), 57. Let but few of the anomalies or irregularities of the tongue be taught … to young beginners.
1874. Blackie, Self-Culture, 34. Some anomalies, as in the conjugation of a few irregular verbs.
3. Astr. The angular distance of a planet or satellite from its last perihelion or perigee: so called because the first irregularities of planetary motion were discovered in the discrepancy between the actual and the computed distance.
1669. Flamstead, in Phil. Trans., IV. 1109. The moons mean Anomaly is 0 s, 15 d. 10 m. 37 sec.
1706. Phillips, Anomaly of the Orbit is the Arch, or Distance of a Planet from its Aphelion.
1867. E. Denison, Astron., 32. The distance of a planet from perihelion, or of the moon from perigee … is called its true anomaly; and the distance it would have gone in the same time if it moved uniformly, or in a circle instead of an ellipse, is its mean anomaly; and their difference is called the equation of the centre.
1868. Chambers’s Encycl., I. 280. The anomaly was formerly measured from the aphelion; but from the fact that the aphelia of most of the comets lie beyond the range of observation, the perihelion is now taken as the point of departure for all planetary bodies.
4. Mus. A small deviation from a perfect interval, in tuning instruments with fixed notes; a temperament. Ed. Encycl. 1830.
